Journey To Transylvania
Transylvania
is a real place, not one of those made up kingdoms
which provided a colorful local for a rollicking operetta, but a real place.
Surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains and the Transylvanian Alps, Transylvania
is a region about two-thirds the size of the state of Maine. It has had a
long and colorful history. When
Rome ruled the east, Transylvania was know as the province of Dacia. When the
Roman legions withdrew, Transylvania became a route of invasion from the east
as, over the centuries the Goths, the Huns, the Gepidae, the Avars, the Lombards,
the Magyars, the Tartars and the Turks invaded the region and ravaged the
land. At one time or another, the country was dominated by the Germans of the
Holy Roman Empire, the Hungarians, the Turks. But for one brief moment, in the
middle of the sixteenth century,
Transylvania experienced a time of political independence.
That time
of independence coincided with the coming of the Protestant Reformation, and it
was in this ancient land, in this brief moment of opportunity, that Unitarianism,
as an organized religious movement, came into being. Under the influence of
the court preacher, Francis David, King John Sigismund embraced Unitarianism,
as did most of the nobility and the majority of the common-folk of the land.
It was here that we were first
called Unitarians, and this was the only time or place in our entire history, when
we constituted a majority.
It is to the ever-lasting credit of those
early Unitarians that when they found themselves possessed of power, the King
and the Diet promulgated the Edit of Torda, guaranteeing freedom of conscience
and tolerance throughout the region. At a time when Protestants and Catholics
throughout Europe were torturing and murdering each other over religious differences,
Transylvanian Unitarians
insisted that no one's conscience should be coerced, that preachers should be
free to speak the truth as they understood it, and people should be free to support
those preachers whose vision of truth they shared.
This golden age
of Unitarianism was very brief. King John Sigismund was succeeded by rulers not
sympathetic to the tolerance of openness to truth which characterized Unitarians.
Soon the Unitarians found themselves subjected to intense pressure and persecution.
Francis David was
imprisoned, and died in the Dungeon at Deva. Before long the political independence
of Transylvania evaporated. Over the centuries, Transylvania has been part
of the Holy Roman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and since the end of
the First World War, most of the area has been part of Rumania. None of these
powers has been sympathetic to the Unitarian vision. But through centuries of
unremitting hostility, the Unitarian churches in Transylvania have survived and
still cling to life to this day.
The oldest Unitarian Churches in the world are to be found not in Boston, nor
in England, but in that fabled land ensorcelled by the Carpathian Mountains and
the Transylvanian Alps.
A few weeks ago, Ruth Vogler traveled to Transylvania,
to visit our sister congregation in Barot. I have asked her to share
with us, this morning some of her impressions of the land and the people and those
Unitarian churches which embody the most ancient expression of our tradition.
RUTH,
WHEN WERE
YOU IN TRANSYLVANIA, AND WHY WERE YOU THERE?
WHAT
ARE YOUR IMPRESSIONS OF THE LAND?
AND
WHAT OF THE PEOPLE? WHAT ARE THEY LIKE AND WHAT IS THEIR LIFE
LIKE?
YOU VISITED OUR SISTER CHURCH IN
BAROT. WHAT ARE YOUR IMPRESSIONS OF UNITARIANISM IN TRANSYLVANIA TODAY? WHAT
IS THE CONDITION OF UNITARIANISM IN TRANSYLVANIA TODAY? HOW ARE TRANSYLVANIAN
UNITARIANS SIMILAR TO US AND HOW
ARE THEY DIFFERENT?
HOW MUCH MONEY
HAVE WE SEND TO OUR SISTER CHURCH IN TRANSYLVANIA THIS PAST YEAR, AND HOW HAS THAT
MONEY BEEN USED?
IN A COUNTRY FACING
RUN-AWAY INFLATION AND SOCIAL DISLOCATION AND POLITICAL INSTABILITY, WHY IS
OUR SISTER CHURCH SPENDING ITS RESOURCES BUILDING A NEW BUILDING?
FOR
MORE THAN FOUR CENTURIES, THE UNITARIAN CHURCH
IN TRANSYLVANIA EXISTED UNDER A
POLITICAL REPRESSION WHICH INSISTED THAT THERE COULD BE NO CHANGES OR INNOVATIONS
IN THE BELIEFS, THE PRACTICES, THE FORMS OF THE CHURCH. WHAT WAS PERMITTED
WAS UNITARIANISM AS IT EXISTED UNDER KING JOHN SIGISMUND IN THE
MID-SIXTEENTH CENTURY. DID YOU SEE ANY EVIDENCE THAT TRANSYLVANIAN UNITARIANS
HAVE BEGUN TO THROW OFF THOSE ANCIENT RESTRICTIONS AND EMBRACE NEW IDEAS AND
PRACTICES?
OBVIOUSLY, THE PLIGHT OF
TRANSYLVANIAN UNITARIANS IS A MATTER
OF GREAT IMPORTANCE TO YOU. WHY DOES IT MATTER SO MUCH WHETHER UNITARIANISM
SURVIVES IN THE LAND OF ITS BIRTH?
WHAT
DO THE UNITARIANS IN TRANSYLVANIA NEED MOST FROM US AS THEY STRUGGLE INTO
A STRANGE AND UNCERTAIN FUTURE?
WHAT
CAN WE LEARN FROM THE UNITARIANS IN TRANSYLVANIA?
DO
YOU HAVE ANY FINAL IMPRESSIONS FROM YOUR VISIT YOU WOULD LIKE
TO SHARE WITH US?
What
does it matter whether we attend to the needs of our co-religionists
in Transylvania? A village preacher explained to one of my colleagues
why it matters. The future, he said is uncertain. After all these centuries,
it is not clear that we shall survive. But we find that there is some
comfort in the knowing that you are watching, and that if we disappear, our disappearance
will not go unnoticed; someone will know and someone will care.
I
have been asked why we should
spend so much time and energy and resources on the problems of Transylvanian
Unitarians, when there are so many pressing problems in our own country--only
a few miles from our own front door. I can only say that empathy with human suffering
anywhere increases our ability to respond to suffering everywhere. I
do not believe that the altruistic response is a limited, finite resource. I believe
that human caring generates human caring, just as love generates love.
The more we care, the more we are
able to care and the broader are our sympathies and the deeper are our responses.
Transylvanian Unitarians are not in competition with the homeless of Union
County or the the students in the Newark school system. Rather, each represents
an opportunity to express our solidarity with our brothers and sisters who
need to know that someone in the world cares.
The Unitarians in Transylvania
represent a very special opportunity for us. They are the people who gave
shape and substance to our religious
tradition. Earl Morse Wilbur, the author of the definitive history of
Unitarianism, has insisted that ours is not a movement based on theology, on having
the right answers to questions about the nature of ultimate reality. Under
pressure, over the centuries, we have sometimes had to define ourselves in terms
of other peoples categories. But when we have been granted a time when we
need not defend ourselves, Unitarians have abandoned theology and reverted to
the basis of our movement, which
has to do with a religious method. We are the people, says Wilbur, whose religion
is based on the practice of reason, freedom and tolerance. Whether we are
talking about Unitarians in Transylvania, or in England, or in New England or
in New Jersey; whether we are talking about Unitarians in the sixteenth century,
or the eighteenth century, or at the end of the twentieth century, that is
our distinguishing mark--not the answers we give, from time to time, to theological
conundrum, but the style of
our religious life, a fierce and abiding commitment to reason and to freedom
and to tolerance. And that religious style, which is our hallmark, was created
and crafted in Transylvania over four centuries ago, and is still cherished there
by people who have suffered for their faith more than we can imagine.
Someone
needs to witness their struggle, and care about its outcome. If not
we, who have inherited their religious method, then who? And if not now, when?